VIA Technologies has announced a new addition to its Eden ultra-low voltage processor lineup at a press conference on August 16, 2007.
According to the DIGITIMES, it will come toting the 21mm x 21mm nanoBGA2 packaging like other Eden models and utilizes the typical VIA V4 bus. Under the hood however, it will run at a faster 500MHz core frequency as well as consume only 1W of power.
Excerpt from the DIGITIMES article:
Several IPC (Industrial PC) makers including Advantech have already adopted the new Eden ULV processor and products are expected to begin appearing on the market later this month, noted sources at VIA. Lanner, another Taiwan-based IPC maker, pointed out that it has already designed the CPU into several network appliances and embedded boards.
For those not already in the know, VIA has been focusing a fair bit on the ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) category market in recent years.
They have since came out with a few reference designs with a Mini-ITX motherboard spec’ed at 170mm x 170 mm, a Nano-ITX at 120mm x 120mm, and the Pico-ITX with a bewildering itsy-bitsy 100mm x 72mm. That’s the size of the motherboard for you here, with full-fledged “PC” pin-outs (such as VGA, RAM, USB, and IDE pin-outs) and of course the processor. To find out more, check out this page on the Pico-ITX reference design released in April this year.
So far, they have stayed in the domain of hobbyist machines and home and/or media appliances. But Dell recently launched a desktop based on the Mini-ITX and Intel has came out with a Mini-ITX motherboard as well.
I know you folks are IT professionals and all, but hey, it’s Monday, and no harm lightening up to dispel some of the blues. So, tell us, what would you do with a Mini/Nano/Pico-ITX system if someone gave one to you.
